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Comment by Consultant32452 | Hacker News Reader

>To be fair, the thinking at the time was that trade relationships would foster better relations overall.

The people in power never believed that. That's just how it was marketed to the people whose lives they were destroying.

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Ricardo's Comparative Advantage argument was specifically derived under the condition of closed capital accounts because Ricardo himself didn't only understand but actively warned about what would happen with open capital accounts. Every time he got trotted out to rationalize the policies that deindustrialized the United States he must have been spinning in his grave.

For more, read "Trade Wars are Class Wars" by Klein and Pettis. The thesis is in the title and the case is convincing.

A similar thing happens with immigration. The public discourse is about "jobs Americans won't accept", labor shortages, bringing in the best and brightest, etc. The closed door discussions are all about wage suppression of the middle class.

It worked very well with south Korea, Japan ,Germany, Taiwan, allowed which were either enemies or not a democracy 100 years ago. Vietnam seems to be working that direction as well.

It seemed to be working in China too until Xi took over.

Korea, Japan, and Germany were violently subjugated by the US. We didn't just "free trade" our way into making them nice.

TIL the Marshall Plan was "violent subjugation"

We literally nuked Japan and intentionally carpet bombed civilian infrastructure in Germany.

We didn't make them nice by destroying them. We made them nice by rebuilding them afterward in our image. Which, as it turned out, was a lot better than what they were working with previously.

in the case of Germany and especially Japan, violently pacified is a much better phrase.

ICYMI, The Prince podcast is quite good.

Introducing The Prince: Searching for Xi Jinping

https://www.economist.com/podcasts/2022/09/07/introducing-th...

Am noob. TIL: One motivation of Xi Jinping's strategic policy shifts is anti-corruption. I can't help but wonder if there were alternatives. Like legislation, enforcement, and strengthening the judiciary.

But I'm noob. If it was just that easy, it probably would have happened.

> It seemed to be working in China too until Xi took over.

Ya. This whole mess just makes me sad. I had really hoped China and USA would continue to grow towards each other.

>I can't help but wonder if there were alternatives. Like legislation, enforcement, and strengthening the judiciary.

I think those things are incompatible with a dictatorial regime.

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